VANESSA Feltz has returned to TV after being rushed to hospital with pain “worse than childbirth”.
The 62-year-old left fans concerned on Monday when she shared a message from her hospital bed, revealing she was in agony due to a “big” kidney stone.
Yesterday Vanessa appeared The Jeremy Vine Show and opened up about her ill health.
She said: “I was felled by a kidney stone.
“Who knew? One thing, I was absolutely fine making lunch for the grandbabies, having a laugh, hungry, normal, everything.
“And the next minute, the pain was absolutely extraordinary.
“I’ve had natural childbirth twice, I’ve got some idea of pain, but this was remarkable. Actually remarkable. Anyway, in the end, I had to be nuked with a laser.”
Host Jeremy, 59, questioned why doctors didn’t allow the kidney stone to pass naturally.
Vanessa replied: “It was too big, it turned out. They scanned it, it was five millimetres, just a bit more than that.
“When they said, ‘If it’s over five millimetres, we’ll have to operate,’ I was praying, please let it be over five millimetres. Please let them operate because I couldn’t bear the thought of suffering through it any longer. I’m delighted to be here, I can’t tell you.”
Kidney stones are masses made of salt and minerals, and can be anywhere between a grain of salt and a golf ball in size.
There are several different types – calcium stones, struvite stones, uric acid stones and cystine stones.
The stones have potential to cause severe pain, and while most pass on their own through the ureter – the tube between the kidney and the bladder – some need to be surgically removed.
It’s been a dramatic few days for Vanessa.
Last week she was sitting in for Storm Huntley on Jeremy Vine’s Channel 5 show when a fire alarm caused the entire building to be evacuated.
The former Celebrity Big Brother star took to her social media as a pre-recorded programme was put on the airwaves in its place.
“Oh for goodness sake a fire alarm!” she exclaimed on her Instagram story.
“Nobody knows if it’s real or pretend, but we think it’s real because there’s an actual fire engine and the building has been evacuated.”
What are kidney stones?
Kidney stones are a common and usually very painful condition.
They usually affect people between the ages of 30 to 60, the NHS says.
It adds: “They can be extremely painful, and can lead to kidney infections or the kidney not working properly if left untreated.”
How can you tell if you have a kidney stone?
- You have a pain in the side of the tummy
- You have severe pain that comes and goes
- You feel sick or are vomiting
Call NHS 111 or a GP if you have severe pain, a high temperature, an episode of shivering or shaking or blood in the urine.
Kidney stones form from chemicals in the urine.
Some are as small as a grain of sand and are passed in the urine without you noticing. Others can be as large as a pebble.
Causes of kidney stones are:
- Drinking too little water
- Too much or too little exercise
- Obesity
- Weight loss surgery
- Eating food with too much salt or sugar
Many kidney stones can be treated at home by drinking lots of water, using pain relief and waiting for the stones to pass.
Large kidney stones need to be removed by surgery, in which various methods are used to break the kidney stone into smaller pieces so that they can pass in the urine.
Some surgeries are done under anaesthetic while others are not
